


Seven Years in the Making

by the_wordbutler



Category: How I Met Your Mother, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:44:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria Hill spends seven years undercover as an average New Yorker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Years in the Making

**Year One**

 

            “He stole a blue French horn, sir!  Let me repeat: a _blue.  French.  Horn._ ”

 

            Maria’s fingers spider across Director Fury’s desktop.  They’re long and slender, with bare fingernails curling against the glass.  Fury leans back in his chair.  The leather creaks, his whole body rocks, and he steeples his fingers together.

 

            “We talked about this,” he says.

 

            “No, sir,” Maria retorts.  She raises a hand as though she’s going to point a finger at him, but then presses her palms back against the glass.  “We talked,” she continues after a breath, “about—blending in.”

 

            “This is just part of blending.”

 

            “ _This_ ,” she repeats, and when she grits her teeth, Fury raises his eyebrows.  “This,” she says, again, “is a—a lovesick _puppy_ who thinks I’ll marry him and give him adorable Canadian babies.”

 

            Fury’s lips twitch.  He _almost_ smiles.  “You can do this, agent.”

 

            “I—”

 

            “You can _do_ this.”

 

            Maria watches him for ten full seconds before she turns on her heel and storms out of Fury’s office.

 

            Later, he e-mails Phil Coulson to say, _The Canadian bit’s a nice touch._

**Year Two**

            “Robin Sparkles?”

 

            “Nice to see you too, Agent Hill,” Fury says without looking up from his tablet.  The door slams behind her, and the echo carries.  “How’s New York treating you?”

 

            “Robin _Sparkles_?” Maria repeats.  Her hands slap the desk, but it’s not enough.  They find her hips, they find the air, they curl into fists, and all before Fury even glances up.  “I— _sir_.”

 

            “Yes?”

 

            “Of all the—  You had to—  _Robin Sparkles_?”

 

            Her voice cracks when she says it the third time, and Fury sighs as he places the tablet on his desk.  “We talked about this,” he reminds her.

 

            “No,” she insists, jabbing the desktop with a finger.  She’s leaning over, like a caged beast ready to pounce.  “We talked about me being in New York to keep an eye on Stark’s projects there.”

 

            “And?”

 

            “And—fitting in just like anybody else after what happened in the New York field office back in ’97.”

 

            “And?”

 

            “And—”  Maria stops.  Fury purses his lips and _looks_ at her.  She meets his one eye before she straightens her spine.  “This was not part of the deal,” she says.

 

            “Isn’t it?”  He swings the chair so he can place his elbows on the desk.  “We can’t send you out there with an incomplete backstory.  How many agents have you seen ripped to _shreds_ because all they’ve had is a fake name and a fictional mother-in-law from Missouri?  Your cover has to be a whole person.  _Robin_ has to be a whole person.”

 

            She looks away.

 

            “You’ll handle this,” he tells her.

 

            After she leaves, the door slamming again, Fury e-mails Phil.  _I think her next single should be a ballad._

 

 

**Year Three**

“He’s a pain in the ass!” Maria announces as she storms into the board room.  She’s the first agent to arrive by a good half-hour.  Fury lets his newspaper sag.  “He—  Who _wrote_ his backstory?  Was it Coulson?  Because if it was Coulson, when I get my hands on him, I’ll—”

 

            “Who’s this?” Fury asks.  Her head whips up in time to watch him finish folding the newspaper.  He shrugs.  “I don’t know what _all_ the hands are doing,” he lies.

 

            “That—Argentinian agent you sent back with me!” Maria fumes.  She pours a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner, looks at it for a few seconds, and then knocks it into the trash.  “He’s some kind of— _sherpa_ or something.  All ‘free spirit’ and ‘bongo drums at three a.m. when I’m trying to sleep.’  Yesterday, he brought some—homeless ultimate Frisbee players back from the park!”

 

            “You mean Agents Neilsen, Cramer, and Dubrowski?”  She twists around to stare at him.  Fury shrugs again.  “You,” he says, “can’t know what all the hands are doing, either.”

 

            “He—  They’re all—”  Maria can’t finish her sentence.

 

            During the meeting, while Maria sulks cross-armed and glares daggers at Phil, Fury passes him a note that reads, _Next time, more patchouli._

**Year Four**

            “Sir, there is marshmallow fluff _in my hair_.”

 

            Fury looks up from the schematics he’s spent the last week going cross-eyed over to watch Maria half-steer, half- _shove_ an engineer out of the way.  She grips the edge of the table, crinkling the corner of a blueprint.  “I’m . . . sorry?” he asks.

 

            “From the chimp.  The—  You _can’t_ not know about this, sir!”  When he doesn’t say anything, she throws up her hands.  “I’m supposed to be in Japan, remember?  Doing some ‘world newscast’ program so nobody knows I’m here?  With _you_?”  She gestures to the blueprints for the helicarrier.  “We’ve been filming all eight weeks of footage in advance.”

 

            “And?”  He looks back at the schematics.

 

            Maria slaps them.  “And Coulson brought a chimp!  He said that I can’t do _real_ news—real fake news, news that _looks_ real, I—  There’s a _chimp_ , sir!”

 

            “I don’t think Agent Coulson would do _anything_ involving a chimp unless it’s absolutely necessary,” he points out, shaking his head.  “Your cover needs to be air-tight, and even _we_ can’t predict the future.  The only kind of news you can do is the kind with generalities.”  He waves a hand.  “Weather’s good, dog saved a baby from a burning building, the president’s done something stupid again.”

 

            “But _sir—_ ”

 

            “Anything else, agent?”

 

            She stares at him.  Fury waits for the stare to break.

 

            He chuckles at the glob of marshmallow in Maria’s hair before he e-mails Phil, _Pics or it didn’t happen._

****

**Year Five**

“You gave _Don_ _Frank_ the Chicago job?”

 

            Fury closes his eye.  It’s after midnight in New Mexico, and Maria’s comm channel has just flared to life.  He’s five minutes from leaving the office.  “I was going to call you in the morning, after—”

 

            “He’s _green_ , sir!” Maria announces.  He opens the video feed on her end.  She stalks back and forth in front of her computer.  “He didn’t wear pants.  For months!  That wasn’t in his backstory, either.  Coulson said he—had an incident when we had him in Bangladesh, but—”

 

            “You realize,” he says, watching her hands flutter like agitated butterflies, “that we still need you there.  Yes?”

 

            “Stark hasn’t come into the city in _months_ ,” she presses, barely pausing for breath.  “All of his projects are focused in California, in Miami, in Texas—”

 

            “We’re trying to get him off the military engineering,” Fury points out.

 

            “—and now he’s partnering with the University of Chicago, but _you_ are keeping me in _New York_.  With these—these—”

 

            “These what, Hill?”  She falls silent, hands on her hips.  Fury massages a temple.  “You weren’t complaining about them,” he says, “when you stood up in that wedding.”

 

            She looks away from the computer.

 

            “Or on that night when you drunk-dialed Barton.”

 

            She presses her lips together in a tight line.

 

            “Or when you slept with the bl—”

 

            “ _Sir_!” Maria squawks.  “That—  You don’t understand, that was just the few times, I—”

 

            “Mmm-hmm.”  Fury’s tiny smile reflects on the screen.  “We need you in New York,” he says again.

 

            “But—”

 

            “Goodnight, Agent Hill.”

 

            “Goodnight, sir,” she says.

 

            When the comm goes dead, Fury opens a message to Phil.  _At some point, we should probably let her know there isn’t_ really _a Chicago project._

**Year Six**

            “You’re quiet today, Hill.”

 

            The observation deck at the construction outpost is sound-proofed for good reason.  Outside, white-hot metal is welded together, wiring is strung, and panels are crane-lifted into place.

 

            Maria crosses her arms.

 

            “Is that where we’re at, now?” Fury asks.  She doesn’t glance at him.  “I know,” he continues, “you don’t enjoy this assignment.  I know you think it’s a waste of your skill.  And maybe you’re right.”

 

            She snorts.

 

            “But Stark’s already bought the building he’s going to tear down for his new tower.  And once he starts construction, we need you to be our eyes and ears on the ground. ”

 

            Her arms tighten.

 

            “You know,” he presses, his hands against the safety rail between them and the glass, “that I can’t send anyone else.  Have _any_ of our other agents made it more than a couple weeks in New York?  Look at your Argentinian friend.”  Maria rolls her eyes.  “Look at Agent Frank.  None of them can _do_ what you can.  That’s why you’re there.”

 

            She presses her lips together, pulls in a deep breath through her nose—and sighs.  “‘Two Beavers are Better than One,’ sir.”

 

            “Excuse me?”

 

            “Robin Sparkles’s ‘new’ song.”  She turns to look at him.  “It’s called ‘Two Beavers are Better than One.’”

 

            Fury clears his throat.  “I see,” he says, before he excuses himself for a meeting.

 

            He messages Phil from the hallway: _YouTube link.  Immediately._

 

**Year Seven**

            “It’s—magnificent, sir.”

 

            Fury smiles from his place on the helicarrier’s deck.  It’s their first official test flight, and the engines send a pleasant _thrum_ through the floor.  Next to him, Maria watches, open-mouthed, as the reflective panels engage.

 

            “There are still kinks to work out,” he says.

 

            “I—  If there are kinks in _this_ , I don’t want to know what your definition of ‘incomplete’ is.”  She rests her hands on her hips, and then she shakes her head.  “Seven years in the making.”

 

            “No,” he says, turning to look at her.  “More than seven.  Seven years since we got _approval_.  Seven years since we started dealing with Stark, and Richards, and every other half-crazed scientist on this damn planet.  It’s been half a _lifetime_ in the making.”

 

            Maria nods, and he watches her face.  It’s a gorgeous day to be flying thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic.  The sky is blue and, for the most part, clear; the only visible clouds are white, fluffy, and miles off.  The sounds of headings being set, equipment being tested, and measurements being analyzed echo behind both of them.

 

            “You know what this means, don’t you?” he asks, finally.

 

            She starts, twisting to glance at him.  “Sir?”

 

            “The New York assignment was contingent on this carrier being completed.  Stark Tower hasn’t exploded yet and, as far as I can tell, we’re settling into relatively peaceful times.”  He watches her face.  “I need my right hand here, not off—palling around with architects and kindergarten teachers.”

 

            She presses her lips together before she nods.  “Absolutely, sir,” she says.  Fury hears the catch in her voice, the tiny trip, but he doesn’t ask. 

 

            Maria’s about to say something else when a junior agent rushes up to them.  “A message from Agent Coulson, sir,” he announces.  He hands off the tablet and disappears again.

 

            Fury drops his eyes to the screen.  He looks for a few seconds, nods, and then closes the window.  The display goes black.  “Sir?” Maria asks.

 

            “It’s Stark,” he says, tucking the tablet under his arm.  “Seems that he’s bought two more buildings in the same area.  Wants to—build a complex and seriously work on producing viable clean energy.”

 

            Her lips part.  “In—New York?”

 

            He nods.  “I’ll call Coulson in the morning,” he assures her.  “There’s a few young agents he’s been watching.  One or two of them might be able to—”

 

            “No,” Maria says.  Fury blinks, but when he glances in her direction, she’s smiling.  “You said I’m the only one for the job,” she reminds him.  “I’ll go back tomorrow.”

 

            He raises his eyebrows.  “You’re—sure?” he asks.

 

            “Absolutely.”

 

            Fury watches her walk back to her station without trying to hide his smile.  She barks out orders to a handful of officers, opens a few windows on her view screen, and doesn’t once look back to him.

 

            _New project for you_ , he types as a response to Phil Coulson’s e-mail about the excellent chili in the cafeteria.  _Get Stark to build a couple more towers._


End file.
